slavery in the United States
Quick Summary
Slavery in the United States began in 1619 with the arrival of Africans in Jamestown, Virginia, as indentured servants who eventually gained freedom. However, over time, this evolved into chattel slavery, particularly in the South, where enslaved people were crucial to the economy, working on plantations growing tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton, and sugar.12
While Northern businessmen profited from the slave trade, slavery was not widespread in the North. The U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1788, entrenched slavery by counting enslaved individuals as three-fifths of a person for representation and prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade before 1808.2
The African slave trade was officially ended in 1808, but the domestic trade and "slave breeding" continued. Slave codes regulated the system, treating enslaved people as property with no rights. Despite brutal conditions, enslaved individuals resisted through various means, including escape via the Underground Railroad.2
The issue of slavery's expansion fueled national controversy, leading to compromises like the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 prompted Southern states to secede, initiating the Civil War. Initially fought to preserve the Union, the war became a fight to end slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and was ultimately abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.34
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